POLITICS: IN CALIFORNIA

POLITICS: IN CALIFORNIA;Nader as Green Party Nominee May Dull Clinton's Prospects in Golden State

By B. DRUMMOND AYRES Jr.

Published: January 20, 1996

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 18—
One of the great imponderables in every Presidential election is whither California's 54 electoral votes, the largest lode of all.

So whither California in 1996 now that Ralph Nader, the consumer crusader, has jumped into the race, running for the Green Party's nomination in the Golden State's primaries this March?

Everyone expects Mr. Nader to win that minor contest, given his ready name recognition, his high positive ratings in the polls and his sturdy support for such Green causes as a cleaner environment, the reining in of big-money special interests and more equitable distribution of the nation's jobs and wealth.

No one expects him to carry California in the general election, let alone any of the dozen other states in which he may also run, among them Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

But that is not the political point.

What makes the Nader candidacy such an intriguing imponderable, political experts say, is that it has the potential in a closely contested general election to be a spoiler candidacy, siphoning wavering Democrats from President Clinton and possibly opening the way to victory for a Republican.

Another politically intriguing scenario for a Nader candidacy could be that it would force Mr. Clinton to begin a difficult ideological tack back to the left in an effort to hold disaffected Democrats.

Either way, Democratic leaders are concerned, especially about the prospect of a Nader candidacy in California, a politically freewheeling state where third parties have historically fared well.

A Presidential candidate who fails to carry California faces a sharply reduced prospect of reaching the White House and the daunting financial and organizational prospect of trying to offset the loss of California by running extra well elsewhere.

Bill Press, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, certainly is not ignoring Mr. Nader.

"A vote for Ralph Nader this fall would be a vote for Bob Dole," Mr. Press said, making the assumption that Senator Dole will be the Republican nominee, "and I can't believe that's really what Ralph and the Green Party want to accomplish."

The Green Party is little known nationally and has only a tiny political base, attracting less than 1 percent of the registered voters in California, for example. Yet, with Mr. Nader as its Presidential candidate, the party would have a national figure carrying its banner and would attract attention as never before.

More important, as the Green candidate, Mr. Nader would be espousing an ideology that well might appeal to significant numbers of disaffected Democrats, especially those who believe, as Mr. Nader does, that Mr. Clinton sold out American labor by signing toothless trade treaties, sold out to corporate America by ending the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, and sold out the American voter by refusing to push for tough campaign and Congressional reforms.

Mr. Nader insists he is not interested in being a political spoiler and, short of that, is not interested in leveraging deals with the President over various issues. Nor, he insists, is his candidacy, first announced in December, a ploy to enhance his image and help his causes.

"I'm only interested in changing the way politics works in this country these days," he said, as ideologically pristine today at 62 as he was three decades ago, when he burst onto the national scene with a safety crusade that changed the way automobiles are designed and made.

"The people need more political choices and less cynical political horse-trading," he continued. "Both the Democrats and the Republicans refuse to change, won't give up the special-interests money, won't reform and give the people more power. This campaign isn't about me becoming President. It's about getting a new political movement going for the long haul."

Mr. Nader is not yet running in any state except California. He says, however, that he has been approached by Green Party officials in a dozen or more states.

"I'll make more decisions in coming weeks," he said. "But no matter what happens, this will not be a traditional candidacy. I won't travel a lot or hold traditional rallies. In fact, I don't plan to spend beyond $5,000 or so. I don't think I have to.

"The fact is, I've already got high national name recognition, and people already know what I stand for and the media are good about giving me access. I think that will be sufficient to get this movement going."

Four years ago, in his only previous political outing, Mr. Nader received 6,300 write-in votes in the New Hampshire primary, or just under 2 percent of all votes cast.

This year, in California, polls indicate that Mr. Nader is considerably stronger and might pull 10 percent or more of the vote.

What is not so easy to measure at this early point is just how much danger Mr. Nader poses for the President.

"We recently did a theoretical race between Clinton, Dole and Nader, and Clinton still came out ahead," said Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll, one of California's most respected survey groups. "Nader seemed to draw most heavily from people who had already abandoned Clinton -- and Dole, too, for that matter."

"You would think that Clinton should be hurt most by Nader, and that may turn out to be the case, especially in a close race," Mr. DiCamillo added. "It's early in the contest and things change. But thus far, there's no solid confirmation of that."

Some members of the Green Party worry about the prospect that a strong showing by Mr. Nader might help put a Republican in the White House and thus, in their judgment, be counterproductive. They would prefer that Mr. Nader use the threat of a candidacy to move the President to the left, or that the party concentrate more on running local and state candidates, a conventional base-building approach.

"There is not 100 percent agreement on what we should be doing," said Michael Twombly, a Sacramento lobbyist who has long been active in the Green Party.

"In fact," he added, "even though Ralph is a sure thing to win our primary, it still will take an 80 percent vote of party leaders to forward his name to the Secretary of State for inclusion on the fall ballot.

"That might seem pro forma after we've already set up and conducted a primary, but getting 80 percent in anything political is never easy."

Nor can Republicans afford to gloat too much over the prospect of a third-party Nader candidacy bringing down Mr. Clinton.

Polls in California and elsewhere indicate that Republicans have reason to fear a third-party candidate this year, too -- especially if the candidate is Ross Perot or somebody else put up by his new Reform Party.

In the 1994 Congressional elections, the Perot vote gave Republicans the edge they needed to take over both the Senate and the House for the first time in 40 years. This year, if that vote goes elsewhere, Republican candidates, including the party's Presidential nominee, would presumably suffer.